Pharrell Williams will receive this year's Fashion Icon Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. The hatted one follows in the footsteps of Rihanna, last year's awardee, as well as previous icons Johnny Depp, Lady Gaga, Nicole Kidman and Iman, among others. [Los Angeles Times]

The short, chubby Iraqi interpreter watched as the massively biceped American soldiers he worked for shot hoops during their breaks from guarding the Baghdad airport.
It was 2006, and although Mohammed Akram Taher, 17, shared the troops' love of...

The Annual Author Series at Renbrook School will host a free talk on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at 6:30 p.m. by New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline and novelist Kate Manning. Kara Sundlun, co-host of WFSB's Better Connecticut and anchor of...

According to an article by Gary Klein, "USC Coach Steve Sarkisian brings in a recruiting class that is considered the second-best in the nation." No source for the ranking is given. Rivals and Scout are well known and respected services.
So which...

Everyone geeks out over someone, particularly those whom others geek out over.
John Lennon, introduced to Jerry Lee Lewis, fell to the ground and kissed the Killer's shoes.
Even Charles Dickens wrote fan letters to George Eliot so barely contained he could have been writing to One Direction: "(You) have impressed me in a manner that I should find it very difficult to describe to you …"
And so it is with Neil Gaiman's affinity for David Bowie.
So much so that there couldn't be a better...

Rachel Zoe has an impressively diverse resume: fashion figure, celebrity stylist, designer, editor-in-chief of online style destination "The Zoe Report" and star of the Bravo TV series The Rachel Zoe Project. In one of her most recent business endeavors, Zoe has taken on a new world of styling as co-founder of the blow-dry bar DreamDry.
The blow-dry and styling salon debuted in Manhattan in February 2013 and opened its third location in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood (904 W. Armitage Ave.) Dec. 4....

People this week named Australian actor Chris Hemsworth ("Thor," "The Avengers," "Snow White and the Huntsman") the sexiest man alive. Leading the Wrap to ponder, why hasn't Ryan Gosling ever been crowned? Because Gosling doesn't want it, sources say. So there! [The Wrap]
The trailer for Disney's live-action "Cinderella" movie is out, and in it fairy godmother Helena Bonham Carter confides to Lily James' Cinderella that glass slippers are "really comfortable." The movie is due in theaters in March....

In her decade-long career, Coco Rocha has danced down runways, leaped through the pages of fashion magazines and pranced across national TV ads.
All of which makes her the rarest of top models: one whose lively, often humorous personality is allowed to take center stage. In the process, the Canadian-born 26-year-old has also gained a reputation as the fastest poser in the industry, a talent that's on full display in "Study of Pose: 1,000 Poses by Coco Rocha" (Harper Design; $60), a new book...

With less than one month to go until the primary election, Anne Arundel County executive Republican candidate Steve Schuh has more than twice as much cash on hand than his rival, incumbent Laura Neuman.
In campaign finance reports filed on Tuesday, Schuh reported a balance of $666,310 to Neuman's $257,311.
Neuman had raised much more in the reporting period, which ran from January through May -- $372,781 to Schuh's $121,839. But Schuh began with a large cushion built up over the last four years....

Kendall Jenner ascended the Met Gala steps on Monday in the same manner she's climbing the proverbial ladder of the fashion industry -- in flawless styling and sky-high heels.
The aspiring model wore an age-appropriate light pink trumpet gown from Topshop and accessorized with jewels from Chopard and Tabitha Simmons heels for the annual Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala. Or shall we call it #kendallsmetball, which she was wont to do on social media?
It was Jenner's first time at...